Central Piedmont Community College has formally launched The Community Lifeline initiative to strengthen public safety education and workforce readiness across the region.
Included in the initiative is a $118 million public safety training facility that is funded through Mecklenburg County appropriations and private support.
The project is a collaboration with Mecklenburg County and local first responder agencies. CPCC has said the project will feature simulations that law enforcement, firefighters and paramedics can train with, including a driving course and indoor firing range.
Some community members have pushed back on the facility and the broader implications of the project. “In reality, (the project) makes the campus unsafe, fostering an atmosphere of fear and surveillance — particularly for students and community members from demographics that have fraught relations with the police,” organizers with the group Stop Cop City CLT said in an email to The Charlotte Observer.
That group and others have been speaking about the plans on an Instagram page chronicling the opponents’ concerns. The Charlotte Observer also reported CPCC asked the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department to “flag” any growing movement against a first-responder training facility being built in Matthews, according to emails included in a lawsuit.
We take a closer look at the facility and the vision behind it.
GUESTS:
Catherine Butler, vice president, communications, marketing & public relations at Central Piedmont Community College
Garry McFadden, sheriff of Mecklenburg County
Major Brian Sanders, recruiting and training bureau commander at CMPD
